Eleanor Hinton Hoytt knows all about negative U.S. maternal mortality statistics and she hopes that health reform--with help from a bill in Congress--can do something about it.

"Until recently we haven't had a national plan for addressing maternal health," says Hinton Hoytt, CEO of the Washington-based Black Women's Health Imperative. "We deal only with morbidity and mortality rather than putting in place a way to make sure that people have what they need."

Hinton Hoytt spoke with Women's eNews by phone following her participation at a May congressional briefing on a bill--separate from health reform--that would prod states to study the rising problem of U.S. women dying from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

04:26 PM on 4/26/2011
This is disgracefu­l. And now they are cutting social services and threatenin­g Planned Parenthood­? Perfect.
We need MORE education and MORE services, not fewer.
The disparity between African-Am­ericans and Hispanics and Caucasians maternal mortality is truly deplorable­.